A senior military commander of Hamas who headed the Islamist group's aerial operations in Gaza City has been killed in Israeli air strikes, the military said Saturday.
Murad Abu Murad was killed over the past day when fighter jets struck an operational centre of Hamas from where the group carried out its "aerial activity", the military said.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians fled on Saturday to southern Gaza seeking refuge after Israel warned them to evacuate before an expected ground offensive against Hamas in retaliation for the deadliest attack in Israel's history.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that nearly a week of fierce bombardment was "just the beginning" as Israel seeks to retaliate against Hamas after their fighters killed more than 1,300 a week ago.
Israeli ground forces made "localized" raids into Gaza in the past 24 hours "to cleanse the area of terrorists and weaponry" and try to find "missing persons", the army said.
Most of those killed when fighters burst through the heavily militarized border into Israel last Saturday were civilians, in an attack compared to 9/11 in the United States.
At least 1,900 Gazans — most of them civilians and including more than 600 children — have been killed in missile strikes on the densely populated enclave, the health ministry said.
Besides, a Reuters journalist was killed on Friday and six others from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera were wounded while working in southern Lebanon, the three news organizations said.